ELDAs Continuous Assessment Checklist - Age 1 to 2

Nurturing Little Explorers: Milestones for 1 to 2-Year-Olds in Early Learning

The journey from infancy to toddlerhood is a period of incredible transformation and rapid development. For children aged 1 to 2 years, every day is filled with new discoveries as they begin to explore their independence and understand the world around them. To guide educators and parents through this exciting stage, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for Children from Birth to Four outlines key Early Learning Development Areas (ELDAs).

This comprehensive guide serves as a valuable tool for teachers to assess and track a child's holistic progress, identify their unique strengths, and provide targeted support for specific developmental areas during this crucial early year.

Understanding Progress: Our Assessment Approach

Our assessment rubrics are designed for qualitative evaluation, focusing on a child's continuous growth rather than rigid percentages. This approach allows for a nuanced understanding of each child's individual learning journey:

• Still Needs a Lot of Practice: The child is just beginning to show awareness or minimal engagement with a skill. They require significant support and repeated opportunities to develop.
• Needs Encouragement: The child demonstrates some understanding or attempts, but benefits from frequent prompting, guidance, or additional support to consistently perform the skill.
• Fulfils Expectations: The child consistently demonstrates the skill independently or with occasional, minimal support, showing a clear and age-appropriate understanding.
• Exceeds Expectations: The child consistently demonstrates the skill independently and often applies it in more complex or novel situations, indicating an advanced understanding for their age group.

Key Developmental Areas (ELDAs) for 1 to 2-Year-Olds

1. Well-being (ELDA ONE)

Well-being encompasses a child's physical health, emotional security, and overall nourishment, laying the foundation for healthy development.

• Being Well-Nourished: Children at this age begin to recognize new foods and develop an understanding of similarities and differences in tastes and appearances. They start to grasp which foods are nutritious and may even help with serving food or setting out plates and utensils. They enjoy both local and indigenous foods, adapting to family eating practices. It's also recognized that some toddlers may experience developmental delays in certain areas.
• Having Good Health: This involves developing basic hygiene habits. Children will imitate washing their face and hands, and attempt to brush their own teeth, though adult follow-up is still required. They may show curiosity about others' bathroom habits and can learn to wash and dry their hands. While driven to explore, they are often unaware of dangers but will listen to warnings.
• Being Safe and Secure: Toddlers are naturally curious, wanting to explore everything in their environment. They learn primarily through sensory exploration, shaking, banging, throwing, and dropping objects to understand cause and effect. Despite their drive to explore, they don't yet consider hazardous circumstances and will listen to warnings from adults.
• Developing Physical Abilities and Interests in Physical Activities: This area highlights both large and small muscle development.
  • Large Muscles: Children progress from crawling to "cruising" (moving while holding onto support) by 15 months, and often begin running by 20 months. They learn to kneel, push, and pull toys, and pull themselves up to stand, improving balance. They show interest in their own bodies and may attempt to kick a large ball, eventually kicking a small ball forward. They move rhythmically to music, swaying and clapping to reflect its mood. While running, their gait may be awkward, leading to common falls. They start creeping up stairs, eventually walking up them, and explore various ways to move their bodies, including climbing. They may bend down from a standing position to pick up objects by 15 months.
  • Small Muscles: This involves developing fine motor skills. Children use their "pincer" grasp (thumb and forefinger) to pick up small objects. They progress in using their hands and fingers effectively, experimenting with objects by turning, banging, and bringing them to their mouth. They enjoy feeling different textures. They also begin to use a spoon and fork, handle a cup with minimal spilling, and feed themselves finger foods. They enjoy creating movement in toys by pushing and pulling, and playing with large balls, often rolling them to an adult. They use their pincer grasp for activities like putting rings on a peg and show interest in patterns, attempting to string beads or work with magnetic shapes. By the end of this period, they can often build a block tower of six cubes.
• Building Resilience: Children at this age show pleasure when familiar adults are nearby and are keenly observant of others' emotional reactions, often checking facial expressions for guidance. They experience a wide range of emotions (affection, frustration, fear, anger, sadness) and may have tantrums, but with adult help, they begin to use comfort strategies. They are aware of others, enjoy exploring objects with adults (e.g., playing "peek-a-boo"), and may make simple overtures to other children. They show "contagious distress" when others are unhappy. When conflicts arise, they may act out physically or emotionally, but calm down with adult intervention. They also begin to show willingness to be responsible, such as packing away toys.

2. Identity and Belonging (ELDA TWO)

This area focuses on a child's developing self-awareness, self-care, and ability to form meaningful relationships.

• Awareness as Capable and Confident Learners: Children build skills, characteristics, interests, and preferences through sensory exploration, gathering information using all five senses. They develop curiosity about people, places, and objects, and learn about themselves as adults draw attention to their strengths and areas for development.
• Strong Sense of Self-Care: Children want to participate in daily routines like dressing and cleaning. Early in this period, they start pushing their feet into shoes and arms into sleeves, becoming more actively involved in dressing and undressing over time. They depend on adults for most care but may put on/take off one article of clothing independently. They understand simple routine phrases and use gestures to communicate their likes and dislikes. They show a strong desire to do things on their own, feeling secure with adults nearby, using these relationships as a secure base for exploration.
• Building Strong Relationships: Children learn about their own abilities through interactions with others. They increase social skills by communicating with adults and children, often using their body to express needs before language is fully developed. They enjoy playing alongside others and sharing experiences.
• Sense of Group Identity and Celebrating Differences: They extend trusting relationships to other adults and frequent playmates. They are observant of others' emotions, show awareness of others' feelings, and may make simple overtures to familiar children. They exhibit "contagious distress" when others are unhappy. In conflicts, they may act out physically or emotionally but calm down with adult help, and they show a willingness to be responsible, such as packing away toys. They also learn strategies to control emotional expression with adult help.

3. Communication (ELDA THREE)

Communication encompasses listening, speaking, early literacy, and expressing ideas through various forms.

• Listening to Sounds and Speech: Children pay attention when spoken to, understanding common routine phrases. Their attention span for stories may be short. Their receptive vocabulary grows rapidly, understanding hundreds of words by 18 months. They love listening to stories and enjoy nursery rhymes, imitating sounds from their environment, including animal and vehicle sounds. They can follow simple directions and distinguish between commenting and questioning intonation.
• Speaking Using Different Styles: Between 12 and 15 months, children acquire about one word every other day, with a "spurt" between 16 and 23 months where they acquire one or two words daily. By 12 months, the average child says up to three words, communicating also by grunting, nodding, and pointing. By 23 months, they may say around 200 words. Their vocabulary includes many nouns, some verbs, descriptive words, pronouns, and location words. While pronunciation can be difficult, around 18 months, they begin experimenting with combining words into short phrases, though often lacking parts of speech. They use "my" and "me" frequently and with pride.
• Making Meaning by 'Reading': Children continue to 'read' books and environmental print. They look at books and inspect pictures, holding books right-side up. They enjoy nursery rhymes and books with single pictures of familiar items. Some may "jabber" as if reading familiar books, capturing the tone of voice. By the end of this year, many children label pictures and may comment on what's happening in them. At this age, they do not yet show awareness of print as distinct from pictures or specific knowledge of alphabet letters.
• Recording Experiences and Ideas: Children begin to speak about their experiences ("I like..."). They act out experiences in make-believe play. They draw circles, faces, and human figures, naming them. They use their senses to explore art materials like crayons, finger paint, and molding dough, taking pleasure in textures and experimenting with basic art tools. They can scribble with oversize crayons on large paper, often shifting tools between hands. They make circular and straight scribbles, experimenting with lines, but without awareness of linear organization for writing. At this age, they are simply experimenting with making marks on surfaces.

4. Mathematics (ELDA FOUR)

Mathematics for this age group involves developing an awareness of number, counting, sorting, shapes, and problem-solving.

• Awareness of Number and Counting: Between 18 and 24 months, some children begin to use a few number words without fully understanding quantity, often imitating counting rhymes. They start to understand "one" and "two" (e.g., distinguishing one or two from many). They know their own age and can mentally determine that one item added makes "two," and one taken away from "two" makes "one." They enjoy counting/number rhymes.
• Developing Awareness of Categorizing: Between 18 and 24 months, some children can classify, label, and sort familiar objects by a known group (e.g., hard vs. soft, large vs. small, heavy vs. light).
• Using Number Language: They begin to understand and use words like "one," "two," and "more," responding appropriately to requests like "Give me two."
• Experimenting with Symbols and Marks: Children make circular, continuous scribbles with occasional straight lines, experimenting with placing lines on top of one another.
• Sorting, Classifying, Making Comparisons, and Solving Problems: Between 12 and 18 months, children understand "object permanence," meaning an object still exists even when hidden. They can recover objects hidden in one place and then visibly moved. They may believe a broken cracker is "more" food than a whole one. They develop a sense of time through daily routines and may follow simple sequences. They want to explore their environment and are challenged by filling and emptying containers. They explore objects in many ways to understand cause and effect. While they will role-play sharing with adult guidance, independent sharing typically begins around age 3. They enjoy obstacle courses.
• Exploring Shape, Space, and Measurement: Between 12 and 18 months, children show greater awareness of shapes and patterns, understanding object permanence and that there's an order to the day. They notice environmental patterns and use terms like "tomorrow" and "yesterday." They know primary colors and basic shapes (circle, rectangle, square, triangle) and enjoy auditory patterns. They begin to categorize objects by properties like size or shape and can pick up blocks in order of size. They are able to work simple "insert" puzzles (e.g., three-piece whole objects) and build three-dimensional structures using one type of item.

5. Creativity (ELDA FIVE)

Creativity in this age group manifests through problem-solving, imaginative play, and artistic and musical expression.

• Identifying, Searching for, and Creating Solutions through Problem-Solving: Children experiment with solutions to movement challenges (crawling, rolling, pushing) and explore relationships with objects by filling and emptying containers. They may become frustrated and cry or get angry when unable to solve a problem. They also begin to ask questions, distinguishing between commenting and questioning intonation.
• Identifying, Searching for, and Creating Solutions through Play and Make-Believe: They increasingly play alongside others, enjoying shared experiences. They play more complex make-believe games, often centered around home life, relating to dolls and stuffed animals realistically, and pretending one object is another (e.g., a block as a phone). They love to create ideas and structures with everyday items like cardboard boxes, string, sticks, and stones, using objects in new and unexpected ways.
• Identifying, Searching for, and Creating Solutions through Visual Art: Children begin to draw recognizable circles, lines, and human face shapes. They use their senses to explore art materials like crayons, finger paint, and molding dough, taking pleasure in textures and experimenting with basic art tools. They can scribble with oversize crayons on large paper, often shifting tools between hands. They roll clay into "snakes" and balls, showing preference for particular textures. They are also strengthening their fine motor skills to start cutting and pasting.
• Identifying, Searching for, and Creating Solutions through Music, Dance, and Drama: Children dance to music from the radio and clapping, reflecting the music's mood with full body movements. They explore musical instruments like drums, shakers, rattles, and triangles, understanding how they work and that sounds affect behavior. They enjoy making their own music, mimicking adult sounds, and using musical sounds for communication. They request favorite music and respond to changes in tempo, loudness, and style with body movements.

6. Knowledge and Understanding of the World (ELDA SIX)

This ELDA focuses on how children explore and make sense of their environment and the objects within it.

• Children Explore and Investigate Their World:
  • They focus on features of objects or how to do something, often enjoying repetition. During the second half of this year, some children will explore objects by filling and emptying containers (e.g., with sand or water) and enjoy playing with water (e.g., pouring, splashing). They enjoy repeating activities.
  • They use others to help them make sense of things.
• Children Identify, Search for, and Create Solutions to Challenges Through Play and Make-Believe:
  • They are interested in pushing and pulling things and begin to build. They can build three-dimensional structures using one type of item (e.g., a cube) and enjoy creating movement in toys (e.g., pushing, pulling).
  • They investigate to find out how things work. They explore objects by filling and emptying containers and play with toy telephones.
  • They show interest in turning on and operating electronic items, noticing sounds and light and responding to their variations, and wanting to explore toy telephones.
• Children Identify, Search for, and Create Solutions to Challenges Through Visual Art:
  • They begin to make associations between actions and the sequence of routines. They understand a few common phrases used in routine situations (e.g., "Do you want more?", "Give me a kiss.", "bye-bye.") and only the simplest explanations in routine contexts.
  • They understand time in experience-based ways (e.g., now, later, before), though still with the simplest explanations in routine contexts.
  • They show interest in the world they live in and models of it. They learn primarily through sensory exploration, using all five senses to collect information. They may use motion or sound to represent observations (e.g., showing size with hands, making animal sounds) and explore objects, experiencing their properties (e.g., color, texture, weight, taste) to develop their vocabulary.